This latest American Masters program looks at the original, and still champion, professional amateur – a guy so curious, and so capable, that he was able to step into the shoes of other people and write stories about the experience. That was true even if those shoes belonged to the quarterback of a professional football team, and the lessons George Plimpton revealed in his book called Paper Lion was only one of his many triumphs in that arena. Yet he played in many other arenas as well, serving as co-founder and editor of The Paris Review for half a century, and becoming such an icon himself that the people gathered to discuss him here are like one of the celebrity-filled parties Plimpton was famous for hosting. Even Ken Burns shows up, consenting to be a talking head in someone else’s documentary. Check local listings.